One of the most powerful motifs in the work of the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, in terms of its sheer linguistic exuberance, ideational evocativeness and imagistic dexterity, is his transformation of contemplative traditions, at times alluding specifically to their Christian, Hindu and Buddhist roots, even as these are integrated in his own individualistic and trans-cultural terms.

Anybody studying contemplation as practice and in terms of its cultural history, its psychological significance, or any other context could benefit from reading Soyinka in that light.

I am using contemplating in the specialized sense in which it is used in Christian spirituality, an approach similar to meditation, which it which it can be used in terms of mutual meaning. Contemplation involves an effort to reflect on a subject in order to arrive at a meaning that transcends its immediate expression, to give what is less than a thorough definition. It often reflects on an idea in order to gain entry to a world of meaning to which the idea gives entry, like a door into a vast house of treasure. In this sense, it can be said to be used be central to creativity. What Soyinka shares with explicitly religious practice of this discipline is his use of their techniques or related ones created by himself in pursuing similar goals while operating within a context that does not identify wholly with any religious orientation.

Central to his use of contemplation is his description of what, adapting a term from Buddhism, I would describe as Void Meditation in TheCredo of Being and Nothingness. I see this essay as one of his most important works, particularly on account of the exceptional seven stanzas of poetry at its conclusion which represent to me one of the best summations of classical Yoruba cosmology in terms of its deities and their associated philosophical values. Its also one of the most evocative brief summations of any cosmology in terms of its deities and their related philosophical conceptions I have ever read. Its also one of his most accessible poems. He combines in that poem the imagistic evocativeness and linguistic suppleness that marks his greatest poetry, but without inhabiting a space of uncompromisingly dense ideational and imagistic allusions and syntactic flourish that makes his work challenging for many readers, although those qualities are at the essence of its power and are most rewarding when one takes the trouble to enter into the world they invite you to, though careful reading and letting them grow in you.

Soyinka describes his Void Mediation:

"I do not claim to know what has been the experience of others but as a child I found myself indulging in a rather exotic mental exercise. It was an exercise which originated from my attempts to come to concrete terms with the Christian myth of the creation of the world.

….

In the beginning, claim the Christian scriptures, there was Void. Emptiness. My imagination insisted on conjuring up this primeval state and ended up evolving this quite logical exercise.I would shut my eyes, shut off my mind, then try to enter that primeval state of nothingness which the world would have been, before the creation of anything, animate or inanimate. It became a quite compulsive indulgence. I found myself impelled by a curiosity to experience the absolute state of non-being, of total void- no trees, no rocks, no other beings, not even I."

This is sublime. I see this meditation not simply as a means to mentally go back in time but as an imaginative method of seeking to transcend the accretions of living so one can experience, can re-engage, with a primal psychological and perhaps even metaphysical centre beyond the structures created by human social conditioning that began perhaps even before birth through natal and genetic influence.

Just rest from it all, this technique of meditation seems to suggest. Forget the entire rat race and return to the beginning of all, before existence as you know it existed. A vital method of placing oneself in a perspective relating to relationship between nothingness and the aeons of time culminating in the present.

Soyinka elaborates on the meaning of this meditation:

"I can only wonder, at this distant remove, how I would have been affected at that impressionable age, by the knowledge that adults have actually constructed complete philosophical and religious systems in which all material life, including all those dynamic processes for the reproduction of life which in fact constitute our social consciousness or value of being, are actually conceived as a programmed reversion towards that very state of nothingness, the primal zero, which I then tried vainly to experience."

He relates his meditation to

"[Buddhist Mahapralayi] the condition of universal nothingness, the in-folding of the world as well know it into the original womb of darkness, or more accurately, non-darkness and non-light.

...a return to the primal void."

[Involving]

"At one conceptual level or the other...deeply embedded as an article of faith [in Buddhism and Hinduism] a relegation of this material world to a mere staging post, awaiting the drop of the final grain of sand into the lower half of the hour-glass, then universal negation- gently or cataclysmically. Existence, as we know it, comes to the end that was pre-ordained from the beginning of time."

Meditation ritual adapted from Soyinka's Credo and his play Death and the King's Horseman

The purpose of this ritual is to imagively relate with, and perhaps actually experience through repeated practice, the conception of the source of being, beyond being and non-being, as described in Buddhism , the Great Unmanifest, as described in Hermetic Qabalah.

Breathe deeply and slowly about five times to steady your mind.

Reflect briefly on the following ideas:

Void.

Emptiness.

Nothingness,

Non-being,

Total void-

no trees, no rocks, no other beings, not even you.

Detach yourself from the world by repeating to yourself a number of times these lines from the Tibetan Buddhist poet Milarepa quoted by Soyinka in Credo and The Man Died:

I need nothing.I seek nothing. I desire nothing.

Pause in brief silence.

Repeat the following:

The river is never so high that the eyes of a fish are covered.

A child returning homeward craves no leading by the hand.

Gracefully do I arrive at the source of all, gracefully....

When the elephant heads for the jungle,

the tail is too small a handhold for the hunter that would pull him back.

The sun that heads for the sea no longer heeds the prayers of the farmer.

As civil war roars on in Libya and Colonel Muammar Gadhafi vows to remain in power, reports surfaced that the Northern African country entrusted $1.3 billion through its sovereign wealth fund to Goldman Sachs in 2007, of which the investment bank lost approximately 98%, sparking the ire of Libyan officials. The fascinating drama includes Goldman offering Libya preferred equity and debt which could've made it one of the investment bank's largest shareholders during the onset of the crisis, as well as intimidation and violent threats by Libyan officials.

Libya's sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), was among many funds set up by emerging economies to grow their export-based riches. When the U.S. government lifted sanctions in 2004 prohibiting American firms from doing business with and investing in Libya, Western financial institutions flocked to the oil-rich nation, according to a recent investigation by the Wall Street Journal.

The LIA, headed by chief investment officer Hatem el-Gheriani and Chairman Mustafa Zarti approached 25 different financial institutions around June 2007, when the LIA was launched with approximately $40 billion in assets. Despite forging its strongest relationships with Goldman Sachs, the LWI also invested with Societe Generale, HSBC, JP Morgan, Carlyle Group, Lehman Brothers, and Och-Ziff Capital Management Group.

Recent information, derived from "interviews with close to a dozen people who were involved in the matter, and on Libyan Investment Authority and Goldman documents," show that Goldman essentially lost all of Libya's $1.3 billion investment in option contracts on a basket of currencies and six stocks. (Read Amidst Rumors That Gadhafi's Been Shot, Swiss And Brits Freeze His Assets).

Goldman executives including Youssef Kabbaj, executive in charge of North Africa, and Driss Ben-Brahim, an Arabic-speaking emerging-markets trading chief, met with Zarti and Gheriani in London and in Libya's capital, Tripoli. After an initial investment of $350 million in two of Goldman's most exclusive funds, the Libyans were ready for more.

Between January and June 2008, Goldman execs set up a $1.3 billion investment in option contracts on Citigroup, Italy's UniCredit, Spain's Banco Santander, German insurer Allianz, French energy company Electricite de France, Italian energy company Eni. The investment, which also included a basket of currencies, worked on the thesis that the stocks would rise in value.

But, as the crisis kicked in, the underlying securities took a nose dive, taking the value of the investment down to just $25.1 million by February 2010, a mere 2% of the original investment, according to internal Goldman documents.

Massive losses sparked the ire of Zarti, who met with Goldman's Kabbaj and another employee at the LIA's headquarters in July '08 and, "like a raging bull," cursed and threatened the Goldman employees. Zarti, according to the Journal, is a close friend of Col. Gadhafi and maintains close ties with the Col.'s London School of Economics-educated son, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi. Kabbaj and the other Goldman employee were assigned body guards until they left the country the next day.

In their attempts to fix the relationship and make up for the losses, Goldman executives offered Libya various investment options that included large stakes in the company. Negotiations which included CEO Lloyd Blankfein, CFO David Viniar, and European top exec Michael Sherwood, resulted in the company offering to finance a $3.7 billion investment that would give LIA $5 billion in stock and a payment of 4% to 9.25% annually for 40 years. There were other offers including preferred shares, unsecured debt, a special purpose vehicle in the Cayman Islands, and investments in credit default swaps.

After meeting for the last time in June 2010, the deal never materialized. As of that date, the LIA had about $53 billion in assets. In 2011, after civil war erupted in Libya and Gadhafi said he would not step down, the U.S. government seized about $37 million in Libyan funds, including some still managed by Goldman Sachs, according to the Journal. (Read Gadhafi's $30 Billion In US Assets Blocked By Treasury).

One of the most powerful motifs in the work of the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, in terms of its sheer linguistic exuberance, ideational evocativeness and imagistic dexterity, is his transformation of contemplative traditions, at times alluding specifically to their Christian, Hindu and Buddhist roots, even as these are integrated in his own individualistic and trans-cultural terms.

Anybody studying contemplation as practice and in terms of its cultural history, its psychological significance, or any other context could benefit from reading Soyinka in that light.

I am using contemplating in the specialized sense in which it is used in Christian spirituality, an approach similar to meditation, which it which it can be used in terms of mutual meaning. Contemplation involves an effort to reflect on a subject in order to arrive at a meaning that transcends its immediate expression, to give what is less than a thorough definition. It often reflects on an idea in order to gain entry to a world of meaning to which the idea gives entry, like a door into a vast house of treasure. In this sense, it can be said to be used be central to creativity. What Soyinka shares with explicitly religious practice of this discipline is his use of their techniques or related ones created by himself in pursuing similar goals while operating within a context that does not identify wholly with any religious orientation.

Central to his use of contemplation is his description of what, adapting a term from Buddhism, I would describe as Void Meditation in TheCredo of Being and Nothingness. I see this essay as one of his most important works, particularly on account of the exceptional seven stanzas of poetry at its conclusion which represent to me one of the best summations of classical Yoruba cosmology in terms of its deities and their associated philosophical values. Its also one of the most evocative brief summations of any cosmology in terms of its deities and their related philosophical conceptions I have ever read. Its also one of his most accessible poems. He combines in that poem the imagistic evocativeness and linguistic suppleness that marks his greatest poetry, but without inhabiting a space of uncompromisingly dense ideational and imagistic allusions and syntactic flourish that makes his work challenging for many readers, although those qualities are at the essence of its power and are most rewarding when one takes the trouble to enter into the world they invite you to, though careful reading and letting them grow in you.

Soyinka describes his Void Mediation:

"I do not claim to know what has been the experience of others but as a child I found myself indulging in a rather exotic mental exercise. It was an exercise which originated from my attempts to come to concrete terms with the Christian myth of the creation of the world.

….

In the beginning, claim the Christian scriptures, there was Void. Emptiness. My imagination insisted on conjuring up this primeval state and ended up evolving this quite logical exercise.I would shut my eyes, shut off my mind, then try to enter that primeval state of nothingness which the world would have been, before the creation of anything, animate or inanimate. It became a quite compulsive indulgence. I found myself impelled by a curiosity to experience the absolute state of non-being, of total void- no trees, no rocks, no other beings, not even I."

This is sublime. I see this meditation not simply as a means to mentally go back in time but as an imaginative method of seeking to transcend the accretions of living so one can experience, can re-engage, with a primal psychological and perhaps even metaphysical centre beyond the structures created by human social conditioning that began perhaps even before birth through natal and genetic influence.

Just rest from it all, this technique of meditation seems to suggest. Forget the entire rat race and return to the beginning of all, before existence as you know it existed. A vital method of placing oneself in a perspective relating to relationship between nothingness and the aeons of time culminating in the present.

Soyinka elaborates on the meaning of this meditation:

"I can only wonder, at this distant remove, how I would have been affected at that impressionable age, by the knowledge that adults have actually constructed complete philosophical and religious systems in which all material life, including all those dynamic processes for the reproduction of life which in fact constitute our social consciousness or value of being, are actually conceived as a programmed reversion towards that very state of nothingness, the primal zero, which I then tried vainly to experience."

He relates his meditation to

"[Buddhist Mahapralayi] the condition of universal nothingness, the in-folding of the world as well know it into the original womb of darkness, or more accurately, non-darkness and non-light.

...a return to the primal void."

[Involving]

"At one conceptual level or the other...deeply embedded as an article of faith [in Buddhism and Hinduism] a relegation of this material world to a mere staging post, awaiting the drop of the final grain of sand into the lower half of the hour-glass, then universal negation- gently or cataclysmically. Existence, as we know it, comes to the end that was pre-ordained from the beginning of time."

Meditation ritual adapted from Soyinka's Credo and his play Death and the King's Horseman

The purpose of this ritual is to imagively relate with, and perhaps actually experience through repeated practice, the conception of the source of being, beyond being and non-being, as described in Buddhism , the Great Unmanifest, as described in Hermetic Qabalah.

Breathe deeply and slowly about five times to steady your mind.

Reflect briefly on the following ideas:

Void.

Emptiness.

Nothingness,

Non-being,

Total void-

no trees, no rocks, no other beings, not even you.

Detach yourself from the world by repeating to yourself a number of times these lines from the Tibetan Buddhist poet Milarepa quoted by Soyinka in Credo and The Man Died:

I need nothing.I seek nothing. I desire nothing.

Pause in brief silence.

Repeat the following:

The river is never so high that the eyes of a fish are covered.

A child returning homeward craves no leading by the hand.

Gracefully do I arrive at the source of all, gracefully....

When the elephant heads for the jungle,

the tail is too small a handhold for the hunter that would pull him back.

The sun that heads for the sea no longer heeds the prayers of the farmer.

The essay is striking in her precise and yet imaginatively evocative account of how she develops philosophical theories in relation to her personal experience. In this, it is similar to the method of Susan Greenwood'sThe Anthropology of Magic in which she develops a conception of magical knowledge as a valid anthropological method.

My favorite sections

I highlight the sections describing her experience of the beauty of nature and the conclusions she draws from them.

She describes four kinds of imagination:

Exploratory imagination

Here, imagination explores the forms of the object as we perceptually attend to it, and imagination's discoveries can, in turn, enrich and alter our perception of the object. Whilst perception does much of the work in simply grasping the object and cordoning it off in our perceptual field, it is imagination that reaches beyond this in a free contemplation of the object. In this way exploratory imagination helps the percipient to make an initial discovery of aesthetic qualities. For example,in contemplating the bark of a locust tree, visually, I see the deep clefts between the thick ridges of the bark. Images of mountains and valleys come to mind, and I think of the age of the tree given the thickness of the ridges and how they are spaced apart. I walk around the tree, feeling the wide circumference of the bark. The image of a seasoned old man comes to mind, with deep wrinkles from age. These imaginings lead to an aesthetic judgment of the tree as stalwart, and I respect it as I might a wise old sage. My interpretation of the locust tree is tied to its nonaesthetic qualities, such as the texture of the bark, as well as the associations spawned by perceptual qualities.

Projective imagination

draws on imagination's projective powers. Projection involves imagining "on to" what is perceived such that what is actually there is somehow added to, re- placed with, or overlaid by a projected image. In this way projective imagination is associated with deliberate "seeing as," where we intentionally, not mistakenly, see something as another thing. We put "seeing as" to work in order to try out new perspectives on objects by projecting images onto them. In visually exploring the stars at night, imaginative activity may overlay perception in attempting to unify the various forms traced by individual stars, perhaps by naturally projecting geometrical shapes onto them. Sometimes we take the further imaginative leap of projecting ourselves into natural objects. For example, to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of an alpine flower, I might somatically imagine what it is like to live and grow under harsh conditions. Without imagining such conditions I would be unable to appreciate the remarkable strength hidden so beautifully in the delicate quality of the flower. Both of these examples show how imagination provides a more intimate aesthetic experience, and thus allows us to explore aesthetic qualities more deeply than through perception alone.

Ampliative imagination

involves the inventive powers of imagination, and need not make use of images. It is marked by heightened creative powers and a special curiosity in its response to natural objects. Here imagination amplifies what is given in perception and thereby reaches beyond the mere projection of images onto ob- jects. This activity may thus be described as more penetrative, resulting in a deeper imagina- tive treatment of the object. It is imagination in its most active mode in aesthetic experience. This use of imagination involves both visualizing and the leaps of imagination that enable us to approach natural objects from entirely new standpoints. In contemplating the smoothnessof a sea pebble, I visualize the relentless surging of the ocean as it has shaped the pebble into its worn form. I might also imagine how it looked before it became so smooth, this image contributing to my wonder and delight in the object. Merely thinking about the pebble is not sufficient for appreciating the silky smoothness which is emphasized by contrasting its feel with an image of its pre-worn state. Ampliative im- agination enables us to expand upon what we see by placing or contextualizing the aesthetic object with narrative images. Andrew Wyeth illustrates this with another example from the sea. A white mussel shell on a gravel bank in Maine is thrilling to me because it's all the sea-the gull that brought it there, the rain, the sun that bleached it there by a stand of spruce woods. Ampliative imagination also accounts for a nonvisualizing activity in which we try out novel ways to aesthetically appreciate some ob- ject. Calling on imagination in this way facili- tates our experience of a valley as imbued with tranquillity, or by contrast, we might imagine the cold, icy feeling of the glaciers that carved out the valley's form.

Where ampliative imagination leads to the discovery of an aesthetic truth, I call this imaginative activity

revelatory [imagination].

In this mode, invention stretches the power of imagination to its limits, and this often gives way to a kind of truth or knowledge about the world-a kind of revelation in the nonreligious sense. When my alternative contemplation of the valley, glaciers and all, reveals the tremendous power of the earth to me, a kind of truth has emerged through a distinctively aesthetic experience. I want to distinguish an aesthetic truth from a nonaesthetic truth according to the manner in which it becomes known. We do not seek out aesthetic truths in the way we seek out the answers to philosophical or scientific problems. Rather, aesthetic truths are revealed through a heightened aesthetic experience, where perceptual and imaginative engagement with nature facilitate the kind of close attention that leads to revelation. A quick glance at a lamb reveals little except an acknowledgment of its sweetness. But the fuller participation of perception and imagination can lead to a truth about innocence. Contemplating the fresh whiteness of a lamb and its small, fragile stature evokes images of purity and naivete. It is through dwelling aesthetically and imaginatively on such natural things that we achieve new insight.

I am learning. Sometimes, I am shocked in the process. I wished I had a dialogue with African forefathers to ask what exactly went wrong. We have to contend with the now.When the Jews say:NEVER AGAIN! They mean it and they can sneeze with the world catching cold on that vow.

I respect courage.Where is Africa's?We should blame nobody but look inwards.

"............ Africans sold other blacks to slavery and were subsequently colonized.Nothing much has changed: A hapless, third world people moved by expediencies. Well, that's how the powers that be see it and act on it with impunity". - MsJoe

Nwada MsJoe,

Nothing will change for better in Africa as long as we are spiritual slaves of these Europeans and Arabs. This does not sound encouraging but that's the truth. Human and economic slavery exist very visibly and we all know or pretend otherwise. Africans are their spiritual slaves also and that is the worst category of slavery. That's what is holding black race down.

"Let the African ignoramuses celebrate the folly of their servitude. Where is the NATO bomb falling in Yemen, Bahrain and Syria?The self-interest is not missed." - MsJoe

Simply put "....Let the African ignoramuses....." quite worshiping what they know not for that is the source of all the problems bedeviling Africa. To assist you (not that you need it...) what is Rome, Canterbury, Mecca or Jerusalem saying about all the bombing...Libya? Are they in co-hoots with the "bombers"?

"Africans must be smoking some very strange stuff to think bombing Libya and removing Gaddafi by any means necessary has a thing to do with democracy".- MsJoe

Yes ....! The ".... very strange stuff.." we smoke is called idolatry. We worship Rome, Jerusalem, Canterbury and Mecca falsely. God is Spirit. In this era, God has manifested as Holy Spirit in Africa. Why we seek Him in Rome, Mecca, Canterbury or the Himalayas is "...strange stuff.." indeed? .....What is our Ideology? African intellectuals like you have woke up...thank you.....read some excerpts below...

"We need to remove that spiritual covering (by foreigners) so that we can see the light and then find our way to the Creator. I have read all holy books, bible, buddist, koran, judaism etc. but have not read any holy book for the Africans to connect with the Creator. What we are doing is to follow others as slaves and put on the stigma as pagans and idolators" - Prof. Donald Mbosowo, Oklahoma City Oklahoma

When a people refuse to let go or continue to believe a lie even after those who told the lie in the first place have come out openly to admit they told a lie, such people can only be described or regarded as DUMB. Some people may not be aware or pretend not to know that this is the sole reason Africans are regarded as DUMB by other races. - Adeniba Adepoyigi adenibaadepoyigi@yahoo.com.au – Australia

It will be remembered that in his famous speech renouncing Catholicism and establishing the English Church (Anglican), King Henry the VIII said: "Today, God has left Rome for England!" Catholics still equate Pope with God no matter how they outwardly deny it! - Nnanna Agomoh

"We need to ask questions of how much we really benefit from these foreigns religions. Well, let them (Africnas) walk in darkness for thousands of years. By the time they wake up, it will be too late. - Prof. Donald Mbosowo, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

They (churches/mosques) know what they cooked that is smelling all over the world, My people must be informed so that they will be free. HO! HA!A.A.Madu

Peter Opara…you've denegrated Christianity, dragged it into dirt, spat on the Christian Bible. Who are you then, to critisize a fellow Ogonmuo Naiwu Osahon? Even though Naiwu is onyeOgonmuo coming from EDO, he is still better than you Peter, in that he understands where his bread is buttered. Not you, Peter. Why you still identify with a Christian name is a mystery. – Zubbie Ekueme

Like I already observed, Africans are generally DUMB and IGNORANT - and they never read! All what I described above is easily available in any elementary history book on christianity! But like Willie Lynch said, if you want to keep anything "secret" from the Blackman, hide it in a book - they never read! How sad! But how true! - Dr. Valentine Ojo

"....we finish matter"..... and as always, I thank you nwada MsJoe for your time and this rear opportunity to share the news that Holy Spirit is in Africa (based) not Europe or Saudi Arabia.

Africans must be smoking some very strange stuff to think bombing Libya and removing Gaddafi by any means necessary has a thing to do with democracy. This is all about getting even with a thorn in the flesh; an African leader who pointed out that Africa does not need to depend on the West and has been adamant that Western nations should not have controlling shares in the African Development Bank.

As this article rightly points out, Gaddafi fought the Europeans when they came up with the Mediterranean polity. He ordered the change of school books, which reflected Libyans as Africans.This enraged the Europeans and the Gulf Arabs.

Libya is a country that offers its citizens a quality of life that low-income people in most of the Western nations do not get - free health care, free education up to PhD.

Gaddafi scoffed at African kleptocrats who beg for aid and become beholden to Western donors.This enraged the African looters who are compromised.

France, in a style befitting a Napoleonic conquest, went to Ivory Coast, commandeered the airport and facilitated the capture of a leader in a conflict. African leaders clapped for the arrival of deliverance. Meanwhile, thousands of Africans died and not an outcry from UN guardians of civilians?

Russia went to the G8 Sumit. They promised to facilitate Russia's entry to the WTO.Russia changed and start chanting Gaddafi must go.

Gaddafi sponsored the liberation of South Africa. When Mandela came out of jail and visited Gaddafi, the West and its press went loose. A big head line in Washington Times read: "Mandela calls Gaddafi Dear Brother."

Sure, the so-called African opinion holders on Yahoo were nowhere to do a thing. I DID and my rebuttal was published in the same Washington Times.

It is not difficult to understand why Africans sold other blacks to slavery and were subsequently colonized.Nothing much has changed: A hapless, third world people moved by expediencies.

Well, that's how the powers that be see it and act on it with impunity.

Muammar Ghadaffi fought the Europeans and the West over creation of the "Union for the Meditteranean(UfM)", an organization which essentially drew energy-rich North Africa into a strategic partnership with Europe.... Ghadaffi argued that this was bad politics for the African continent and the African Union to be divided against herself.

Now that they have bombed Muammar into submission, Europe and the West are moving ahead with expanding the role and reach of the UfM.....it is ALWAYS about interests...

Europe has invested about One trillion dollars into renewable energy projects into North Africa ...and they now have a Moroccan face to the organization!